Charles Dickens: In 1850, A Bleak House in America?
Was this never-ending legal case the basis for Jarndyce v Jarndyce? In Virginia, some American claimants press their suit
English miser William Jennens (also seen as William Jennings) died in 1798 without a will. He left an estate worth millions. Soon enough, multiple claimants came forth to inherit Jennens’ estate. The Jennens or Jennings case, as it is also known, became a sensation in the British court of chancery.
There were at least 17 cases before the court. An intriguing question surfaced. Were his heirs in America? It sohappened that Wiliam Jennens’ uncle had served in the British army fighting Indians in America.
Suddenly, American claimants surfaced from Virginia, New England, Tennessee, and even as far away as Utah. Some of these American claimants — named Jennens or Jennings — banded together to try to prove their descent and share in William Jennens’ fortune.
The decades-long litigation is supposed to have been satirized in Charles Dickens’ 1853 novel Bleak House — the fictional legal case of Jarndyce v Jarndyce.
What we are writing about — [Jennings Family Association]. Executive Committee of the Jennings Family Association. Danville [Virginia]: “Register” press [1850]. 16pp. Pamphlet. 10½ x 6½ inches. Folded, gathered, unsewn. [WITH:] A manuscript leaf, 2pp., 7 x 6 inches.
In 1850, three years before Bleak House was published, this curious 16-page pamphlet entitled Executive Committee of the Jennings Family Association was published in Danville, Virginia.
This pamphlet — one might argue (and we will counter-argue , too)— was not a work of fiction. Within its pages, Executive Committee of the Jennings Family Association reported what appeared to be very real activities of Jennings family members, working in tandem in Virginia, to pursue their share of an inheritance worth millions of dollars.
The pamphlet noted an executive committee of the Virginia Jennings Family Association met in Charlottesville, Virginia. There, the committee organized their claim, and raised funds to hire agents. These agents would go to England to pursue their litigation.
One of the Association’s first duties was to gather genealogical information to substantiate their claims. The Executive Committee resolved:
That the Treasurer purchase two suitable books — in one of which shall be recorded the Genealogical statements handed in by the members of this Association. Each statement preceded by the member presenting the same. The other book shall be specialy appropriated for the insertion of the names and branches of the members of families where they have succeeded in distinctly tracing themselves to their progenitors.
But were the Jennings/Jennens of America just being scammed? Were they just easy marks, suckers with deep pockets, for unscrupulous types to make a quick dollar? Maybe.
In a 2002 article, The Humphrey Jennings Estate Fraud, T. Mark James suggests a “feeding frenzy among lawyers on two continents” brought forth an array of cons, cons who portrayed themselves as reputable attorneys and genealogists.
These “helpful” individuals would contact prominent members of the Jennings/Jennens family in America and then suggest they had important evidence that could yield a profitable portion to the inheritance.
Of course, funds would need to be raised. Court filings. Travel expenses. Judicious respectable men would have to be sent to England to expeditiously press the claims of the American Jennings/Jennens.
Then, these helpful upright “attorneys” and “genealogists” — likely, of course, only working for a small fee or commission— these men…
they….
would…
be….
gone.
Scam or otherwise, an interesting 19th-century manuscript leaf accompanies this rare 1850 pamphlet. The manuscript records the names of various Jennings in America, drawn from wills and deeds in the 18th century. The manuscript appears to be documenting the heirs of one Charles Jennings, a 17th century clerk of the county court of Elizabeth City. This is likely Elizabeth City, North Carolina.
The manuscript contains a reference to Charles Jennings’ son, Thomas, deeding 144 acres at the head Hampton River, in Virginia. It also mentions one Mary Jennings, administering her husband’s estate in 1705.
The manuscript illustrates the logic; any thread of information about one American Jennings could potentially show a genealogical connection to another Jennens or Jennings. Seemingly random data might one day support a valid claim.
These connecting links, it was hoped, would ultimately lead back to England, to William Jennens’ fortune. This was genealogy with a purpose. The manuscript was not a mere retrospective view of one family’s roots, recorded for antiquarian purposes. It was an active documenting of family connections; to prove a claim to a great fortune. (Nb., James’ article suggests a startling scenario; not only was specious genealogy being manufactured, but actual legitimate genealogical artifacts were intentionally defaced or destroyed to substantiate or strengthen a familial genealogical connection.)
In the end, the American claimants failed. Unrealistic dreams — no matter how much money was thrown at them — could no longer survive. There was no pot of gold from the rainbow streaming across the Atlantic to America. What has survived is this rare pamphlet that documents the hopes, dreams, and perhaps, the fantasies of the eager and unbounded, begging to be scammed.
Like Dickens’ disappointed Jarndyce family, there would be no fortune for the Virginia Jennings.
Refs. Showell, ed. Dictionary of Birmingham (S.R. Publishers, Ltd., 1969 reprint of the 1885 edition) p114 — “It is almost certain that the “Great Jennens (or Jennings) Case,” has taken up more time in our law courts than any other cause brought before the judges. Charles Dickens is supposed to have had some little knowledge of it, and to have modelled his “Jarndyce v. Jarndyce” in “Bleak House" therefrom.”
Stranger than Fiction? The Jennens Inheritance in Fact and Fiction Part Two: The Business of Fortune Hunting [and] The Humphrey Jennings Estate Fraud both accessed online September 2015.
“A Miserly Monte Cristo.; The Enormous Wealth of William Jennings and the Great Interest Many Have Therein” published within The New York Times February 19, 1892.
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